Written for the Characterisation Challenge.

And So The World Turns On

"Friend of yours, Sirius?" Potter asks, his wand pointed steadily between Evan's eyes.

Black spits a mouthful of blood onto the floor, and Evan hears the satisfactory clinking of a tooth hitting stone. "Rosier," he says disgustedly. "Third cousin, I think."

"That wasn't very nice," Potter says patronisingly. His eyes are hard and cold. "Blood is thicker than water, Rosier. Family should be nice to one another. They shouldn't be fighting." Slowly he moves his wand forwards so that it gently prods Evan's skin. The warmth of the tip borders on too hot to bear and Evan's eyes flick to the side, where his own wand lies on the floor, knocked from his grasp during his and Black's scuffle.

Potter must notice, because his eyes glint in a way that Evan doesn't like. "Best get his wand, Sirius," he says carefully, not taking his eyes from Evan's face.

"Blood-traitor," Evan spits at Potter. His eyes dart to Sirius. "The both of you."

There's a crack and Evan finds himself dangling upside down from his ankle. "Better to be a blood-traitor than Death Eater scum," Potter says calmly. He flicks his wand, and Evan feels that night's dinner shift uncomfortably in his stomach as whatever spell Potter had cast begins to jerk him from side to side.

This goes on for almost a minute before Potter releases the spell and Evan crumples to the floor. "Go crawl back into whatever hole you came from," Potter says contemptuously. "Sirius, leave his wand." Like a dog, Black obediently drops his wand and the pair walk away.

Evan crawls over to where his wand lies and pockets it.

"Fuck."

"Well?"

Evan avoids Avery's eyes. "I knocked some of his teeth out," he says. It's a small exaggeration, that's all.

"And then he beat you like the girl you are," Avery sums up, disgusted.

"He had back up!" Evan retorts angrily. "You try versing them three against one and we'll see how you fare!"

"I wouldn't be stupid enough to do it when his friend are right around the corner, would I?"

"He's never anywhere without Potter."

Avery just scofs. "And you want to be a Death Eater next year. You're pathetic."

Evan had never wanted to punch anyone more in his life. With what is almost god-like self-restraint, he turns away.

Despite the contented feeling seeping through his veins, Evan can't help but squirm. Emma's long blonde hair tickles his bare skin.

The sensation is delectable.

He brushes it aside, and she raises her head to look at him. "You don't have to, you know," she says softly, moving her naked body closer to his. She's so warm.

"I'm not a coward," he tells her. "And Avery wouldn't have been able to take them either."

"I never said you were a coward," she says. "I know it's not your fault. And not wanting to fight another man's war doesn't make you a coward."

"My father would disown me."

"I won't, though."

She lowers her head back to his shoulder and he strokes her hair absently. "I love you," he tells her.

"Run away with me then."

"To where?"

"Anywhere. Europe. Australia. Portugal. Anywhere."

"And leave our families here?"

"Yeah. Let's just elope."

Evan laughs and kisses her forehead. "It's a pretty world you live in, isn't it?"

"It could be our world."

She repeats her offer on the night before he takes the mark. She's already in bed; he's just pulling off his clothes before he hops in with her.

"It's too late," he tells her. His voice isn't sad, or even resigned. It's just a fact; one that he's known for a long time.

"It's not," she corrects him. "Tomorrow will be too late. Now, there's just enough time. If we go tonight, they won't follow. We can leave the country. We can avoid the war."

"It's too late," he repeats.

She doesn't say 'Please?' in a way that he couldn't refuse. She doesn't say 'Do it for me' or 'Do it for the children we'll have'. She doesn't even ask a second time.

If she had, he would have done it.

Once he has the mark, it's done. There's no going back. He knows she wants to flee England, but they both know that he's a Death Eater now; there's no going back for him. So she stays by his side, and he loves her for it.

It's her cage, that stain on his arm. It drives a wedge between them. It's a small wedge, but a wedge all the same. They learn to step over it, though, in time.

He proposes a year after he becomes a Death Eater. It's partly to thank her for staying by him, and partly in the hopes that the distance growing between them will be overcome by their marriage. But mostly it's because he loves her.

"Of course," she says as he kneels in front of her. He slides the ring onto her finger and she kisses his cheek. Then they both continue eating their dinner.

A month later they begin planning the wedding. She pulls out a dusty wedding-book her mother had given her when the couple announced their engagement and they pour over it for hours. She knows a remarkable amount about weddings for someone who's never been to one and Evan sits back in his chair, content to let her take the lead.

The book still sits in that exact spot the next night when Evan runs into the auror Alastor Moody. Emma can't find it in herself to remove it from its spot until long after his funeral.

He watches the tears stream down her face as she packs up his belongings. They'll go to his mother, he knows. She doesn't want any of them.

She's already got enough to remind her of him.

He wishes he could touch her. He wishes he could wrap his arms around her and tell her it'd be alright. But he can't, because he's dead.

And in a perverse way, she finally gets her wish. Evan watches as she steps into the International Floo Station. There's nothing to tie her to England now.

The months pass. She gets paler – and bigger. Her due date approaches.

She gives birth in a small hospital in Germany, but it is not long before she moves on once more, to France then to Switzerland then to Italy. She's wandering and lost, with a baby in tow and nothing to anchor her to anywhere now he's gone. If she didn't have a child, he thinks, she probably would have followed him.

He feels a little jealous of the baby for that, that she should get Emma and he doesn't. But mostly he feels regretful, that the baby only gets Emma, and not the both of them. If he'd eloped with Emma when she'd suggested it, they'd be raising their child together, he knows. He should have listened.

"What's her name?" people ask Emma when the pair walk down the streets.

"Evanna," she tells them sadly. "Evanna Vanity."

And Evan smiles, because she's a bit of both of them.